Kay, so I wasn't entirely truthful. I decided to wing it on my own tonight so without further ado!!Stuff in the Fridge Sunday presents Sam's MeatballsWhat We Used:- 1 lb ground beef
- 1 tsp curry powder, coriandar, smoked Paprika
- pinch of white pepper
- 1/4 onion minced
- 1 egg
- 2 cloves garlic minced
- bread crumbs
- a dash of Lee and Perrin's
- 1/4 cup deli style mustard ( I used the grainy stuff )
Throw your ground beef into a bowl and start adding in all the other ingredients, minus the bread crumbs and egg. When you've got the stuff mixed up, put your egg in and mix well. Then add bread crumbs until you've got the desired consistancy you want for meatballs.Form into balls and place into a baking pan. I used my big Pyrex dish for these and baked them in the oven at 350 till they were done!No pictures tonight, we all know what meatballs look like anyway. This used up some leftover onion and leftover ground beef I had in the fridge! Looking forward to tomorrow's adventure!-Sam
I got ambitious and decided I wanted to try my hand at a Rainbow Cake!! I've been seeing so much about them on the internet, I figured, 'how hard could this be?'
I suppose we shall see. We went to the store to get more food paste for the colors (all the colors of the rainbow!) and gathered some extra things we needed for dinner, then it was to the Kitchen of Despair for an adventure!
Suze's Wedding Cake*
What We Used:
- 4 eggs
- 1 and 1/3 cups milk
- 4 cups flour
- 2 cups sugar
- 1 tbsp vanilla
- 5 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 cup softened butter
First step was to grease and flour the pans. We then beat the eggs with 1/3 cup of milk and the vanilla and set this aside.
We stirred together the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, baking powder and salt) and beat in the butter in what appeared to be a modified version of 'cutting the butter in.' This is a new recipe, but the effect of what seemed like a strange way of doing things at the time turned out nicely. and remaining milk at medium speed.
Okay... the batter did something really weird here. It started looking a little like bread dough. We thought we were doing something wrong, but adding in the egg made it look marvelous. Do this in three batches, scraping down the sides as you go.
Once it was all mixed, it was time to break out the food coloring. We put about a cup and a quarter of batter into a different bowl and added the red food coloring, then repeated with the orange, seeing as it was easier to do two colors at a time. The batter looked great! Food paste totally rocks! Continue mixing colors till you've got the whole rainbow... Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue and Purple! (though, you can do only a few colors, if you so choose. Some people only do three or four, we're just crazy.)
We scooped the batter into the prepared pans and spread it as flat as we could, then baked it in the oven at 350 degrees for approximately 12 minutes. We had to watch them really closely because they were so thin.
Put them on a cooling rack and when they're all done cooling, ice the layers and the top with buttercream icing. We piped some decorations and used crushed and whole Smarties to make our cake look extra rainbow-y!
Verdict?
Very sweet and buttery. This isn't the type of cake that you can have a big piece of... We shared a single piece and still had trouble finishing it!
*Our friend Suze is a very colorful individual. We've joked in the past about making her a garish wedding cake, and this might just be the scary prototype.
Nachos
What We Used:
- Blue Corn nacho chips
- 1/3 can refried beans
- 2 cups cheese
- 2 chorizo sausages, uncased and ground
- Homemade salsa
- 2 avocados
- sour cream
- chili paste
I prepared the salsa in advance, and mashed up the avocados to make guacamole. I usually add extra garlic into the guac, but with how much garlic was in the salsa, I didn't bother this time. What you do to make guac is just mash the avocados then add salsa in to taste. It's quick and easy and really healthy!
We made some spicy sour cream to go with it, too, by adding the chili paste into the sour cream.
Grate the cheese, uncase and grind up the chorizo, prepare your refried beans, then layer it all on top of the corn chips and shove it in the oven. Then sprinkle on some salsa, drizzle on some spicy sour cream, add a dob of guacamole and you're ready to go!
-Sam
Just a quick post today, since we're running late. Stuff in the Fridge Sunday this week was Twice Baked Potatoes and Buffaloaf, using up some leftover potatoes, chives, bacon and bison that desperately needed to go.
We also served it with creamed corn. Ignore that.
Twice Baked Potatoes
What We Used
- 3 good sized russet potatoes
- 1 cup sour cream
- 1 1/2 grated cheddar cheese
- 1/4 cup chopped chives
- 6 strips of bacon, cooked crispy
- A little bit of butter, to help mash the potatoes
Poke the russets with a fork and wrap them in tin foil, baking them in the oven at 350 until they're soft-ish. They need to be able to hold their shape, so don't bake them until they're completely done.
Cut the potatoes in half lengthwise and scoop the insides out and put them in a seperate bowl. Make sure to keep a little bit of the potato flesh in the skins to help them keep their shape.
Mash up the potato flesh in the bowl with a little bit of butter and mix in the sour cream. Grate the cheese, chop the chives, cook the bacon then chop the bacon into tiny pieces to mix into the mashed potato mixture. Spoon the mix back into the potato skins and bake again until the cheese is slightly bubbly and the potato is slightly brown on top.
We reserved a bit of the potato and sour cream mix prior to adding the cheese, chives and bacon to use as a garnish.
Buffaloaf
What We Used
- 2 lbs ground bison
- 1/4 onion, chopped
- 1 cup breadcrumbs
- 1 egg
- 2 tbsp seasoning salt
- 2 tbsp garlic powder
- 2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
- 1 tbsp hickory barbecue sauce
Mix everything in a bowl. Seriously, that's the instructions for this thing. Mix it all in a bowl with your hands until it's a beefy lump, then press it into the bottom of a loaf pan. We have a glass pyrex loaf pan that's pretty much only used for this sort of thing.
Cook at 375 until it's done. It should be brown on the top, and any visible onions should be browned as well. Cutting into it slightly should reveal no pinkness. This can take anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour.
Anyway... busy busy.
-Jess
Good news back on some of our experiments! Again Sam's landlady told us how much the lemon cake was appreciated, Clara enjoyed the coffee cake, and despite our reservations Kate's Birthday Cake was awesome. (I couldn't even dream of finishing my piece. It was enormous!)
It's that weekly stuff out of the freezer night! This time it's Chicken that Sam wants to use up, along with the last of the chianti we used earlier in the week for the Cormarye and mayhaps this random can of beans we discovered in the cupboard.
B, normally not the most adventurous of individuals in the kitchen (except with pie) surprised Sam a couple weeks ago with this red-wine chicken breast that (apparently) was absolutely amazing. Since B is at work, Sam is endevouring to recreate the dish tonight.
The beans are for something else.
Chicken A La Brandon
What We Used:
- 2 chicken breasts
- 1 cup red wine (we have chianti, which is a dry, fruity red. We think B used a merlot.)
- 1 yellow pepper
- 1 orange pepper
- 6 cloves garlic
- 1/4 onion
- garlic powder
- seasoning salt
- white sugar
- 1/4 cup Oil (back to the grapeseed again)
- Olive oil (for frying the chicken)
The oven was preheated to 375... Sam mentions that if your oven has a roast setting it would probably work best, but since the Kitchen of Despair is also known as Hobo Kitchen... well...
B originally used a pre-mixed club house roasted garlic and peppers spice thing, but being wierd and liking to do things the hard way Sam decided that we were going to do this ourselves, gosh darnit, and we sure do have peppers in the fridge that need to be used.
Sam cut the peppers into good sized chunks and put them in a small roasting pan lined with tin-foil. The peppers were joined by six cloves of garlic, peeled but whole, and some leftover red onion that needed to be used also chopped into large pieces.
The peppers, garlic and onion were covered in oil, then a little bit of salt and sugar were sprinkled over. The pan was put into the oven uncovered and then watched like a hawk (garlic apparently is notorious for burning) and stirred occasionally until the vegetables were soft.
Meanwhile, while the veggies were roasting, Sam was butterflying the chicken breasts and setting them aside.
Since the wine is dark, we opted not to roast the veggies for too long to add a bit of color to the dish, and proceeded to chop them into even smaller pieces. The other option was to mulch them, but I liked how they looked.
Once the veggies were finished cooking and set aside, Sam put the chicken into the Mok Wok to fry with the garlic powder. Once both sides had a bit of color, she added the red wine and braised the chicken breasts till they were cooked through. We removed the chicken from the red wine and sliced it into pieces. The wine was emptied from the pan and the chicken was placed back in with the veggies, then when everything was good and hot, the dish was done!
Verdict?
I liked the peppers! I actually did! This is a bit wierd for me, but the roasted pepper flavor all over the chicken was fantastic. Though if I had my way, there would be six more cloves of roasted garlic in.
What the Noob Learned:
So... then there are those beans I mentioned earlier...
Sam's Experimental Veggie Casserole
What We Used:
- 1 can beans (we have fava beans.... and a nice chianti now that I think about it. Heh.)
- 2 cups short grain white rice
- 1 stalk celery
- 3 tomatoes
- 1/4 onion
- 1 1/2 cups grated cheddar cheese
- 3 cups of stock or water
- onion powder
- oregano
- black pepper
Sam started by cutting up all the veggies going into the casserole into bite sized pieces and setting them aside in a bowl, then grating the cheese. Normally I would be doing those honors, but I hate Sam's cheese grater with the flaming passion of a thousand suns. Instead I opened up the beans, drained them, and washed the can-goo off. Can-goo is a technical term.
The rice was pre-cooked on the stovetop in the broth, then placed into a large Pyrex baking dish. The beans, veggies and cheese were all stirred in and it was placed in the oven at 375 (same temperature used to roast the veggies) until everything was a hot gooey mess.
Verdict:
Even before the thing came out of the oven we had to appreciate the smell. Admittedly, I was apprehensive about the casserole since I am the sworn enemy of rice (especially white rice) but it was good! A little less spicy than I like, but that can be tailored to whomever is making the thing.
What the N00b Learned:
- Rice + Beans = complete protien!! Which makes this recipe good for vegetarians!
-Jess
I have ridiculous amounts of random stuff in the fridge and very little funds, so the Kitchen of Dispair put together a sunday night Frittata.
A frittata is like a crustless quiche... Eggs, cheese, stuff. In this case I had three of L&D's in store made sundried tomato and turkey sausages hiding in the freezer and begging for a home that became the base of this experiment.
What We Used
- 6-8 Eggs (Depends on the size of the eggs and the size of your frying pan/skillet)
- Splash of milk (we're so scientifically accurate here.)
- 3 sundried tomato and turkey sausages
- 1 1/2 cups Spinach (We use fresh. That's our choice to make, though Sam is pretty adamant it would be best with fresh.)
- 1 clove garlic
- 1/2 sweet onion
- cooking oil (We used grapeseed. Olive would also work if you want a bit more flavor)
- 1 cup cheese (rough estimate. Though we like cheese, so it may have been more)
- pinch of salt
We started by prepping everything. The cheese was grated, the egg was whisked with the milk and salt, spinach was chopped, onion was diced, garlic was minced, and of course, the sausages were uncased.
(Sam Says: "I wouldn't wish this on anyone... Gah, the casing smells!")
We heated the oil being used in a frying pan, and once the oil was hot we browned the onion and the garlic. After the onions and garlic were caramelized, we added the sausage. Note that by this point Sam had completely forgotten the casing smell and was waxing poetic about the lovely aroma wafting from the stove top.
When the sausage was almost completely cooked, the spinach was added. This gave the whole mix in the frying pan a lovely color. Sam also turned up the heat on the stove a bit to attempt to cook off some of the excess liquid being created by the spinach.
The heat was turned down again and the egg mixture was added. Sam opted out of putting the cheese in right away ("Cheese will do nasty things to this frying pan...") and we stood staring at the mix while it cooked just enough to pull away from the sides of the pan.
(Sam Says: "Cooking a Frittata can be helped along by putting a lid on!" *Puts lid on frying pan*)
We, of course, got to do things the hard way and transfered the entire thing to a round cake pan (in fact, one of the ones we've been using pretty extensively lately), topped it with cheese and dumped it in the oven under the broiler. (This dish transferring problem, of course, could've been solved by the cast iron skillet we don't own.) Also note that the frittata doesn't need to be completely cooked when it goes into the oven.
Verdict?
Mmmmm.
The sausage already had spices in it, and Mr. Divider Pallette (Sam's Husband Thing) couldn't pick out a single overwhelming flavour. So all in all, a success! I liked the fact that unlike a lot of quiche we didn't need to add salt.
We also promised Sam's husband-thing a carrot cake, so one was made. No recipe for that (it was Betty Crocker cake-inna-box) but the cream cheese icing in the container suffered an....incident.... and we were forced to go for scratch. Which I have no problem with.
Cream Cheese Frosting!
I tried to keep better tabs on my amounts this time, for recipe sake.
What We Used
- 250 g (1 package) cream cheese
- 1 cup icing sugar unpacked
- 1 tbsp milk
Again I creamed the base, in this case the cheese, then slowly added the sugar. The milk was an afterthought for the proper consistancy. Note: If you're adding food coloring, the icing may get runnier.
I'm getting a bit better at piping too... Though other than that, nothing fancy with the decoration besides a big squiggly 'sup guys!'.
What the N00b learned:
- Don't use whipping cream in an attempt to stretch store bought icing. It curdles (?!)
- A 'Splash of Milk' is a legitimate term. (According to Sam.)
- The big button on the back of the mixer is eject, not 'go faster'.
-Jess
